L2 Incidental Vocabulary Learning And Retention

Since the concept of"incidental vocabulary learning (IVL)"was constructed by Nagy, Herman and Anderson in 1985, studies of IVL in second language areas have received increasing attention at home and abroad. The main focus of related studies is on the efficacy of reading on L2 IVL, but little work has been conducted on that of written practice activities in a formal classroom setting. Dictionary use is also regarded as a factor affecting L2 IVL, while few efforts have been made to uncover the effects of monolingualized and bilingualized dictionary on L2 IVL. Only one immediate posttest was designed in the most studies of this field, so rare evidence of the long-term retention of L2 IVL can be found.For these reasons, the present study expands Folse's (2006) study by adding a delayed retention test, to investigate the effects of three types of written exercises (i.e. Condition 1: three multiple choices; Condition 2: three completions; Condition 3: one original sentence writing) and the effects of specially prepared two-version minidictionaries (i.e. English-English and English-Chinese versions) on L2 IVL and retention.Involved in the study were the 86 third-year self-taught learners in an English training course to get a bachelor degree at a university in Eastern China. They practiced the three types of written exercises to learn 15 phrasal verbs under the assistance of the two-version minidictionaries. Their previous knowledge and retention of these target words were tested via a modified version of Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS). Participants'VKS scores were resorted to the statistic package SPSS 15.0, and the data from the questionnaires and interview were sorted and analyzed to seek further evidence. The major findings and related pedagogical implications can be summarized as follows.Firstly, the three-type written exercises have facilitated self-taught learners'L2 IVL and retention. In both posttests, Condition 2 has outperformed Conditions 1 and 3, with Condition 1 slightly superior to Condition 3. The score difference of the conditions has been significant only in the immediate posttest, but that between Conditions 1 and 3 has not reached the significance level. When designing the written exercises, teachers could employ the existing materials and make different choices to fulfill different purposes. If quick vocabulary learning and exercise checking are needed, the multiple-choice exercises will be of priority. If deeper processing and higher retention are the objectives, the fill-in exercises will be on the top list. If teachers have limited time to design exercises, then sentence-writing exercises will not be a bad choice. The diversified combinations of different types of written exercises could not only maintain students'interests but also lead students to a more balanced development of language knowledge and skills.Secondly, the two-version minidictionaries have assisted L2 IVL and retention. The English-Chinese version dwarfs the English-English version in helping the participants understand and learn the target words, especially in helping them correct their previous misunderstandings of the meanings of the target words. Minidictionaries could be carefully employed in the classroom learning and teaching. For the beginning learners or low-English-proficiency learners, the English-Chinese minidictionary is of great help. When students'vocabulary reaches the threshold or their English proficiency is greatly improved, teachers should intentionally encourage students to refer to English-English minidictionary, and instruct students to develop their own strategies to efficiently infer the meanings of unknown words and to choose the very meaning from a list of relevant ones.Thirdly, it seems that the two minidictionaries and the three learning conditions have no obvious correlative effects on both retention tests, but their performances interweave with each other. In the delayed posttest, the English-Chinese minidictionary has partly modified the overall effects of the three learning conditions. There seems to be three most effective learning activities for self-taught learners'IVL and retention, namely, Condition 3 with the English-Chinese minidictionary, Condition 1 with the English-English minidictionary and Condition 2 with the English-Chinese minidictionary.Finally, the findings of the present study do not correspond with the predictions of the original involvement load index proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001), but they perfectly dovetail with that of the modified version proposed by the researcher who offered an operational device to distinguish the level or degree of"search", one of the three components of"involvement", on the basis Zhou's (2007) innovations. To get better word gain, teachers could design written tasks which are able to induce higher involvement load and to offer more chances of"search"and"evaluation".